Tag Archives: spring

A few minor bruises and a bursting heart

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First things first:

Sigh.

Happy Monday. You’re welcome

Second:

Thank you all for showing your compassion for my hereditary malfunction of succumbing with force to the laws of gravity day after day. I have to say your stories of cow trampling, stair plummeting, dock dunking, face planting in church and falling off of your tall shoes had me laughing out loud.

Which brings me to the second thing:

Bwahahahahahahahah!

ahhhhhhhhh!

Your willingness to share your embarrassing mishaps with me made me love you more than ever. I’ve always felt that life and all the bruises and bumps that come with it are a bit easier if we can just laugh at the whole damn spectacle.

Especially when that spectacle happens to be looking at you in the mirror. Like Cindy said after spilling her embarrassing “sleeping leg face plant” story, maybe public embarrassment is a way of getting rid of bad Karma. If that’s so we should all be evened up in that department….

In his next life he's guaranteed a wolf body at the very least...

So, it was a tough decision, but given the sheer volume of Annika’s misfortunes, mishaps, smashed limbs and near misses with the holiday fruit salad I am quite certain she is destined to be reincarnated as the Queen of England for all of the suffering she has encountered here in this life. Yup. That and the fact that she had the good humor to let her college roommates tally her falls, flubs and skinned knees make her the winner!

Congrats Annika. Your stories made me feel like the lead ballerina in Swan Lake, a ballerina who came out of the other end of a ranch weekend relatively unscathed…except for the bruise above my eye as a result of a three-year-old’s attempt at fetch with the lab.

Oh, and that scraped heel from a horse spooked by husband’s branch-breaking project.

See him back there, so helpful and unaware of the dangers of loud noises...

But you know what? I barely even felt any of it. Because I was high on the sweet spring air, the horse hair, the bluebells and all of the family and kids and babies that came out to visit us this weekend.

My heart was full and at risk of being the third body part to split or bruise, almost tearing at the seams there was so much joy in there.

Because look at this…

And this…


Don’t turn away yet…

Yeah, you crying? Not yet? Well this should send you over the top…

I’ll wait while you get a tissue…

You ok? Ok.

Yes, this weekend the barnyard was filled with squeals and screams and laughter and tiny little footprints. It was bliss. And it helped confirm my belief in the importance of keeping and sharing a place like this with others, especially the others that stand under three feet tall.

Because there’s something about kids and animals that make people like me believe in impossible things…like maybe those two species, kids and beasts, can actually talk to each other…

The innocence, the trust, the unconditional love and wonder they hold for one another makes me feel like maybe, before we could remember, before we grew up and got all that noise in our heads, all our worries and plans for the future, before we forgot what it was like, before we thought we had so much to say, maybe we could really listen.

Maybe that’s why kids take so well to the farm, why they squeal with delight at the baby calves and reach so willingly to touch the nose of a horse. Maybe that’s why they suggest buying baby chicks and piglets and beg for a puppy. Because they belong here. Together.

Now all’s quiet again at the ranch and those babies have gone home to their beds. But I like to think they dream about horses. I like to think in their dreams they are out there with the dogs, running and rolling in the green grass, laughing and talking to each other.

I like to think those kids left a little piece of their heart here knowing that they can come back and get it anytime they want.

Sigh.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to get down to the barnyard.  Now that the dust has settled on the weekend, I swear I can hear those horses calling my name.

A promise of summer

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It’s been raining at the ranch for the last few days.

Raining, and thundering, and pouring and flooding and rushing the creekbeds.

And smelling so sweet.

So although I’m an outspoken fan of the sun, I know this is necessary. I know this is what spring does.

So I say bring it on. Let the heavens pour down and wash that winter away. Wash it clean and squeaky. We’ve been frozen and thirsty and our hair needs washing…

the worms need air…

the lilacs need watering…

the horses need waking up.

Rain sky. Cry it out. Turn the brown neon and make the flowers hunch over under the weight of your necessary presence.

I don’t mind. Really. I will stand in it all day.

I’ll splash in your puddles, let it soak in my skin, slide down the clay buttes, jump over the rushing streams. Because I forgot what this feels like, being soaked to the core and warm in spite of it.

I forgot what it looks like when the lighting breaks apart the sky. 

I forgot how the thunder shakes the foundation of this little house, how it startles me from sleep and fills my heart with a rush of loneliness, a reminder that the night carries on while I’m sleeping.

I forgot how clean it smells, how green the grass can be, how many colors are in a rainbow.

So go on. Rain.

Rain all you want.

Rain forever on this hard ground and turn this pink road red..

This brown ground green

Let your drops encourage the fragile stuff, the quiet beauty that has been sleeping for so long to wake up and show her face to the sky.

I’ll be there waiting to gasp over it, to gush and smile and stick my nose in the sweet scents and return home to track your mud into my house where the soup is on.
Rain. Rain. Rain. You tap at my windows…
and promise me summer.

How do the crocuses know?

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It’s official.

Deep breath in and out.

Whew.

After a winter that dug its frozen fingers in, ate us out of house and home, turned our skin pasty and soft and all in all outstayed his welcome, peaking up from the once frozen ground is the first genuine promise of warmer days to come.

And when I say genuine I mean it, because this little signal that comes to us quietly on the hilltops has never failed to lift the dreary spirits of country people in the northern states.

Yes, the crocuses are here.

And if there was anything I needed to do upon returning to the ranch yesterday evening after a lovely day with family sitting out in the 60 degree sunshine–if there were chores or phone calls or words that needed to be said to you about Easter and family and the sweet memories this holiday stirs inside of me, all of that was trumped by husband’s and my deep desire to fling open the doors of the car, pull off our town clothes, change into our muck boots and climb the hills to find springtime treasures.

For anyone who grew up in a northern state or in the countryside where your world turns white for months you will understand this. You will understand what the crocus means to us here in rural North Dakota.

You will understand the sweet smell of dirt that accompanies the search and anticipation of spotting that first vivid purple petal emerging from the cold, damp, brown earth. And if you have patiently watched the snow drifts disappear and reappear outside your front porch as the months drag on, you will not laugh when I say at that moment you feel as though you have never seen a purple that deep, a petal as soft, a color so vibrant. Beauty has arrived.

And if you are from the prairie you will smile as you think of that first breeze catching your hair and the sunshine warming your shoulders as you fling off your spring jacket,  let the warm soak in your skin and fall down to your knees to inspect the new arrival.

You will understand how, at that moment, you are eight years old again and you have your grandmother’s hand and you can hear her voice through the breeze. You can hear her exclaim “Oh, now look at that…” as your eyes move from the first flower and across the hill to notice that there are purple dots are everywhere. Scattered.

And if your world has been white and you have been restless you will appreciate the challenge you face just then where your enthusiasm for the change of season begs you to grab the flowers up, collect them for your pockets, pluck them for your basket or your bucket and bring them home to proudly display on windowsills and kitchen tables and countertops.

But instead you pause as your fingers run over the fuzz of the fragile flowers that reach for the sky in groups, holding hands with a promise to face this uncertain sky together.

Yes, if you are from the windswept buttes, the wheat fields, the quiet streams that cut through small cow pastures you will nod your head when I tell you that yesterday, when I finally found what I was after, I made sure I only picked one crocus from each group, careful to not leave any alone out there, certain not to pluck the hilltop clean of this precious flower that enters this world so confident, the first bud of prairie spring…

because life is short and a little piece of me felt like, for all this flower has given me, there should be some left out there to live it.

Yes, if you are from the once frozen Dakotas, you will nod your head because you have done the same thing and returned to your home with a modest bundle of furry purple flowers, shaking off the tiny bugs that have made their home inside the petals before setting the bouquet on your table with pride.

This is the ritual, these are the emotions conveyed by such a small and simple gift from nature. And we repeat this ceremony year after year, our excitement builds, our childhood reinvented, our hope for a new season renewed.

We anticipate, we make time, we know it’s coming every year…

But how do the crocuses know?

How do they know the ground is ready and the sky won’t forsake them?

How do they know that momma’s desperately need flowers just as much as papas desperately need to pick them for her?

How do they know when children need a treasure hunt and grammas need to lead the way?

How do they know just when to make a quiet and brilliant entrance to come and finish thawing us out?

How do they know just exactly when we need them?

A country girl’s guide to hitting the big town.

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When you are a ranch woman or woman living at a ranch…

or a female who loves her serene country lifestyle even if it exists at least 30 to 70 miles away from the nearest shopping mall/friendly neighborhood coffee joint/specialty pub/bowling alley/mexican restaurant…

or a lady who happens to have an extensive fancy shoe collection hiding out under her bed but mostly just plops around in muck boots whenever she pulls her hair up to leave the house…

or just a plain old country girl surrounded by dogs and dirt and sky, there are certain and particular instances where you may have to leave the cats and the cowboy hat clad hubby in the dust, pluck your eyebrows, apply heat to your hair, dig out those shoes and head toward civilization to get some things done.

..like when you realize you actually let someone document you in this outfit...

Yes, even though it takes a certain amount of coaxing for some, it is necessary, can and should be done for the sanity and femininity of our species.

That being said, besides the sudden realization that it may be necessary to pay attention to her outer appearance, there are a list of activities that increase a country girl’s odds of painting her toenails and taking the long highway to the big city.

One of the items on this particular list has to do with work, of course.  Occasionally a ranch woman treks to the big city in order to network with other country girls, to learn about her profession and to talk it out the way women do so well.  But rural girls are resourceful and if they are going to go all that way for the sake of professional development there is no way she is going to pass on the opportunity to enjoy the other items on the aforementioned list:

Shopping

Eating

Dancing

And all of the above are done with a passion that only a remote country girl can possess for the activities that city girls, surrounded by such luxuries,  have come to take advantage of.

Luxuries like the easy access to pizza prepared in someone else’s oven, seventeen-thousand coffee choices, buffalo wings, specialty margaritas and brand new jeans of every shape, size and color waiting for you around every corner.

It should go without saying that in these situations country ladies waste no time and take no prisoners. And while we are waking up early to drive to the coffee-shop to get started on that list of specialty brews to help propel us through Hobby Lobby and Bed Bath and Beyond and Home Depot and all the quaint downtown gift shops before lunch at our favorite restaurant where we order a fancy cocktail, an appetizer, soup, salad, entree and dessert then take a deep breath of preparation to tackle the next phase of taking on the town and every store at the mall, we are busy making plans for the dancing.

Cue photo montage of a few country girls in action so you can catch the vibe I’m throwing…

a toast with a dear friend to beer I didn't have to buy in a box and drive thirty miles home...

The music...

The mayhem...

ahem..

Taming it down with a dinner date with one of the country cousin's cute offspring...

and finishing up with a cute cousin sandwich...

Ok moving right along…

So while country girls immerse themselves in life between stoplights and restaurants and pavement, back at the ranch the snow carries on with the melting, the grass with the growing, the clouds with the rolling, the husband with the working, the horses with the grazing. We call home in the morning and get the report and most of the time it’s “Oh, nothing new, just working….the weather’s been shitty, the dogs ran away…nothing new at all.”

But sometimes a country girl, a ranch woman donning the appropriate footwear choses to hit the big town for a week and accidentally misses a milestone, some activity, a transaction, a big exciting, adorable event and nothing she can purchase or drink or stroll around in the big town could compare to being on the road on her way back home…

to find this walking out into the barnyard…

to tend to the newest additions to the Veeder Ranch….

Sigh…

This country girl’s not going anywhere for a while…

And while I love my fancy shoes and seventeen thousand unattainable flavors of coffee and music ringing in the streets from open bar doors, it is and always will be…

so sweet to be home.

The 105 pound heart

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If you were the lab with your sleek coat and paws that make tracks like a wolf in the mud, your tail would clear a coffee-table with one sweep while running to the door to enthusiastically welcome the neighbors with an accidentally and completely oblivious swat to the groin.

And you would be confused as to why you didn’t fit on the couch, or on a lap, or in the arms of your favorite human, but nothing could keep you from trying.

Because if you were the lab your self perception would be slightly off. In your mind you would be fluff, weightless and wishing to fit in the palm of a hand, or in a pocket, or on the soft cushion of a chair all the while working to squeeze your body between the small spaces of this house, taking up the limited carpeting available for walking.

But if you were the lab you would be polite and move out of the way when prompted, not recognizing that perhaps you are indeed fluff after all…and the rest of the 105 pounds is taken up by your heart.

Because if you were the lab your heart would have to be big enough to fit in the one-eyed pug who came into your life as a little black, squishy blob with two eyes that couldn’t climb the stairs and quickly took over the house and the walks and the yard and the lap that used to belong only to you.

And your sticks. He would always be taking your sticks…

while biting at your back legs.

And yes, if you were the lab your 105 pound heart would give a nice growl, but never a snap, after the 330th time the cat bit your tail and you would attempt to protect the barnyard with enthusiastic barking, only to follow it up with head rubs and giant licks and tail wags and all of the things dogs that love their world do when approached by good humans.


And you would chase deer and pheasants and cows when told a million times to back off to go home, but you would avoid porcupines at all costs, forever remembering the single quill you once had barely dangling from your snout from the first and last encounter with the prickly demons. 

And in the depths of your slumber when you’re drooling from your floppy lips and your droopy eyes are closed up tight for the night, you would have nightmares about this, squealing and whining and moving your legs as you lay on your side.

If you were the lab you would drag out garbage, and bring home dead things and roll in poop and bark up trees and almost spontaneously combust at the site of your person putting on tennis shoes or boots or grabbing a gun or hitching up the boat for a trip to the lake.

You would be four years old with a gray beard and the softest ears and joints that seemed to ache when your old soul arose and you would howl at my harmonica with the same vigor you use to howl back at the coyotes at night…

and during the course of a day your 105 pound heart would fill up, combust and be broken 175 times.

Yes, if you were the lab all of that love and life and adventure you made room for in the 105 pound heart of yours—the pug, the tolerance and acceptance of the cats, the cow poop, the neighbors, the sticks and the fear of the sting of the porcupine would be incomparable, thrown to the wind, forgotten and completely and utterly abandoned at the first site of water….

…water, the only place you, the lab, is truly weightless…

…105 pound heart and all.


We’re like the water

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We’ve got mud here people. It’s official.

And never has a girl been so happy to see this slop and slush and muck. I’ve have enthusiastically switched from snowshoes and boots with three inch insulation to those of a muck variety and I have no intention of dodging or jumping or leaping over any puddles or rushing streams.

I have every intention of stepping in as much of the stuff as I can.

Because we have mud people.

We have mud and blue skies

and a bug on my backpack

and magic sunshine that is turning those white drifts into rivers in places rivers only exist for a few short days during this time of year.

The time between winter and the full on sprouting, buzzing heat wave of spring. The time where the snow still peeks through the trees, the wind still puts a flush in your cheeks, birds are still planning their flights back home and the crocuses haven’t quite popped through the dirt.

My favorite time of year.

When I was a little girl I lived for the big meltdown. My parent’s home is located in a coulee surrounded by cliffs of bur oak and brush where a creek winds and babbles and bubbles and cuts through the banks. And that creek absolutely mystified me. It changed all the time, depending on rainfall, sunshine and the presence of beavers or cattle.

In the summer it was lively enough, home to bugs that rowed and darted on the surface of the water and rocks worn smooth by the constant movement of the stream flowing up to the big beaver dam I would hike to daily. In the typical North Dakota fall it became a ribbon carrying on and pushing through oak leaves and acorns that had fallen in its path. In winter it slowed down and slept while I shoveled it’s surface to make room for twists and turns on my ice skates.

But in the meltdown it was magical. It rushed. It raged. It widened in the flat spaces and cut deep ravines where it was forced to squeeze on through. It showed no mercy. It had to get somewhere. It had to open up. It had to move and jump and soak up the sun and wave to the animals waking up.

And I would follow it. I would become obsessed. I would step out on the back deck and at the first sound of water moving in the silence of our backyard I would pull on my boots and get out there to meet it, to walk with it, to search for the biggest waterfalls and gawk at how it would scream out of its banks and marvel at how it changed.

I would be out there for hours.  Around every bend was something a little more amazing–a fallen log to cross, a narrow cut to jump over, a place to test the water-proof capacity of my green boots. The creek runs through multiple pastures on the place and as long as the daylight would allow I would move right along with it for the miles it skipped along and then return home soaked and flushed and refreshed and completely and utterly exhausted.

And then I would do the same thing the next day. Because even as a kid I knew this magical time was fleeting. I knew the creek wouldn’t always act this outrageously marvelous so I had to get out there…because someone had to see this. And at that time, and still to this day, there are places on that creek that very few people have ever been.

But I was one of them. I was one of them and that creek was performing for me.  Oh, I remember feeling so secret. So special and lucky to have this show in my backyard. And although I loved summer and all the warmth and sunshine and green grass it brought with it, I never wanted this early spring witching hour to end.

I vividly remember a dream I had about the creek when I was about 10 or 11. I dreamed the creek behind my house was huge, like a river you would find in the mountains–a river I had yet to discover at that time. The landscape the creek wound through was the same in real life as it was in my dream–the oaks and the raspberries existed there–but the water was warmer and crystal clear and it pooled up at the bottom of huge and gentile waterfalls that rolled over miles of smooth rocks and fluffy grass. And I was out in it with friends I had never met before as an adult woman with long legs and arms and we were swimming in its water and letting the current push us over the waterfalls and along the bottom of the creek bed until we landed  in the deep water where we would float for a while and then launch ourselves out for another run. And we were laughing and screaming with anticipation for where that water was going to take us. But we were never afraid. We were never cold or worrying about getting home for dinner or what our bodies looked like in our bathing suits.

We were free. I was free. And the water was rushing.

We may never know if there is a heaven while we are here on this very volatile and fragile earth, but that there could be that much water and that much power and change rolling through our backyards and then one day we wake up to find that it has just quietly moved on and out and along still mystifies me to this day.

That there are snowbanks that fly in with the burning chill of winter’s wind and reach up over my head and stay for months on end only to  disappear in one day with the quiet strength of the sun is extraordinary for lack of a more powerful word.

That the water in my creek is made from the snow that fell from the sky in early November and is currently rushing around the trees, settling in hoof prints, being lapped up by coyotes and splashed in by geese and sinking in the earth and changing it forever is something that makes me believe in something.

…like perhaps we are like that drop that fell from above,  afraid of the mystery that was waiting for us as we hurtled through the atmosphere only to find when we finally hit the earth that we are not one drop alone in this world…

…we are the water.

Spring’s cast of characters

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Oh the coyotes have been howling, like really wailing, outside the farmstead lately and things are waking up around here as the sun shines and rain falls, helping wash the snow away.

And this morning there isn’t a trace of wind, everything’s still and things are waking up…

Well some are easier to rise than others…

Yawn.

Oh, I know in some places, in most places, the blossoms are opening up, green grass is poking through the ground and people are having coffee on their front porch without their wool mittens. But like the bay horse sleeping in the food pile up there, North Dakota is sleeping in. But that’s ok. Coming in slow helps me notice and appreciate each little change, each member of the cast of spring characters…

The geese are passing over, honking their hellos…

and if they’re brave and remembered their Muck Boots they touch down and stay for a bit. These are beautiful, elegant creatures…

Much like their cousin, the Turkey, who have been sneaking around the place lately. Always walking away, blending in with the brown grass because they’re shy like that.

Turkey butts.

Speaking of butts…

My view on my road walk if I’m not keeping my eyes peeled for something better.

Butt…(hehe) you’ve got to love my enthusiastic walking partners itching to shed their winter coats and do some rolling in the mud and slop.

I look up and in the air the crows flap and shriek and perch. I always wonder how they know when to come home…

…and how we’ve lived without them darting through our lives and swooping overhead all these months.

And I’m like a kid in a candy store out here in the spring air, keeping a watch out for the first colors, the first crocus poking through the ground. Ahhh, the crocus, my second favorite thing about spring.

My first?

Babies.

The kind born in the hay…

And the adorable, human kind wearing headbands and tiny hats entered in pageants put on by my small town for the enjoyment of the obsessed baby squeezer, kisser, snuggler and squealer like me.

My friend’s baby E. I can’t stand it, I just want to squish her cheeks.

And now cue the montage of my nephew, Little Man dressed in his pageant best:

Can you say “sweater vest?”

What about “Chillin’ with my ladies?”

Ahh, be still my beating heart and silence my baby talk, you’ve got to love a community that holds their baby population in high regard…

and gives them sashes and a spot on the front page of the weekly paper:

Spring’s here and life’s good in western North Dakota.

Bring on the sun, we’ve been (impatiently) waiting for you…

and we’ll take what we can get.

The life we chose.

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Husband stopped the pickup yesterday as another spring snow storm came rolling over the horizon. He stopped along the road where the horses were working on an alfalfa bale that pops plopped down to keep them content through the last of this harsh weather.

We were on our way somewhere, to drop something off. To pick something up. But husband stopped in his tracks and while I sat waiting in the passenger seat watching the clouds turn a deep, menacing blue, without a word husband flung his door open and marched out in the wind and dropping temperatures.

He walked past the paint mare and the gelding we call Tucker, notorious for checking pockets for treats.

He breezed by the two sorrels and the buckskin my father rides.

He dodged the blind mule who never bothers to dodge a thing and slid his hand across the back of Stormy the trail horse without pause even for an ear scratch for the old brother. Because husband was on his way. He had his eye on something, the one living and breathing thing he has missed most during the gray days spent shoveling snow and plowing through the ice and slush and mist and repairing things in this old house while looking out the window to the snow covered buttes, waiting patiently for the meltdown…

And I sat there in the passenger seat, looking out the window at what appeared before me the most quiet and impulsive moment in the home stretch of the longest winter.

As husband reached his cold hand out to scratch the nose of his bay horse, to wrap his arms around his neck, to smell that sweet horse smell I found myself holding my breath.

I imagined them saying things like:

“Well hello. Yeah, well I’ve missed you buddy. Lookin’ good. You’ve wintered well.

We’ll get out there soon, friend. Just waiting on the thaw.

We’ll be out there soon.

Just waiting on the sun.”

It wasn’t a long moment, but after I released my breath and watched the wind blow through the bay’s mane and husband’s scruffy hair rustle as he pulled down his hat and headed back to the road and to life’s schedule, I felt like I should turn away.

It was like watching old friends reunite after months apart. Friends who have grown up together and trusted one another with plans and secrets and sadness and the most happiness and respect a body can offer, but there wasn’t time to grab a drink or take a walk or do what both of them wanted to do so badly and that was catch up.

Go back to the old days when the grass was green.

The meet-up on Saturday that occurred along the pink road that winds down through the coulees and up to the deep blue horizon was one my favorite moments since I have moved back here, very nearing a year ago now. Because it has been a rough winter. There has been a hard frost, some deep snow, days without power, things that need to be fixed and storms that have kept us from grocery stores and big events and far away friends. And I have been reminded of what we have given up to live out here surrounded by dirt roads without the conveniences of sidewalks, gas stations, fancy restaurants, gym memberships, dozens of latte flavors, late night shopping runs and constant plows and garbage service.

Oh, yes, I have missed those things at times when the winter nights came early and stretched on into the mornings. I have felt far away from my friends and isolated when the snow covered my windows and the morning called for shoveling and more snow and another day at home.

But as I watched that man, the one I have known since I was just a little girl, the one who walked with me down the halls of high school and somewhere along the line became my husband and unpacked all of my things and my heart on to this landscape, I didn’t wonder if we did the right thing. I didn’t see a man overwhelmed with the burdens of the weather and isolation. I didn’t see resentment or loneliness or a husband charged with making sacrifices for a wife he loves because this is what she wanted.

I have worried about this.

We have talked about this.

But no. As he stepped out of that vehicle on his own terms I saw hope and ambition and love and admiration, a little bit of crazy and all of the reasons that brought me back home.

I saw him in a quiet moment where he was his best self. He was the man he had envisioned.

And his heart was unpacked too.

Yes, when we live up here we give up some things. We let loose some perfection, deal with the messes, brush off the mud that enters your home on your boots, fix things that break with more broken things and lean in against the winter with the promise of spring.

These are the tests you must pass to survive.

So on Sunday the clouds rolled in and there was more to repair, more things to fix as the sky spit and looked like it would make good on the promise of more snow, a spring delay…

But on Saturday husband opened the door and reached out his hand to the life I chose. The life he chose. The life we have out here together.

And the clouds rolled on past as the storm blew over, the day’s repairs were accomplished and the sun shines today.

I married the right man.

The grass is green under that white and brown.

Things will break and be fixed again.

We’re in the right place.


Please get here soon…

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Crawl in slow
the warmth
the sun

ice to slush
water to dust

my skepticism into trust

that you are on your way
and somewhere under white
and gray
flowers hold on tight
and wait to bloom

please get here soon

please get here soon

Mother Nature. It’s a woman thing…

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24

Good morning from the land of indecision. And by that I am referring to the weather.

And me. But we’ll get to that later.

Ok, so remember when we talked about that spring thing and the melting and the running water and the removal of the wool caps and scarves and my fantasy about wearing cut-off pants and running through the sprinkler.

Well, that’s all shot to shit now and after the last few days, I am firmly convinced that nature is a woman.

A moody one.

Out my kitchen window yesterday...you're supposed to be able to see the red barn...I can't.

Because just as she gets nice and comfortable with a bit of sunshine and blue skies, raising all of our hopes up of sun kissed skin and BBQs, she laughs like an evil queen in a Disney movie and then throws some more snow and wind and fog and freezing ice in our faces…only to come back and apologize with something like a rainbow or 70 degree weather.

Ah well, like a rocky relationship, we’re all used to it by now.

And for those you who think an all out school cancelled, no travel advised, wind whipping snow pellets in your eyeballs, no Schwanns man for the rest of your life and zero visibility day is unheard of after spring has been declared,  I’ll tell you, you haven’t met Mother Nature in North Dakota. In March.

No birds today...

Yes, Mother Nature can be a completely unpredictable, annoyingly indecisive bitch sometimes.

And I can relate, because I have had those kind of days. I am a woman too and lately I have been driving myself crazy with a little project I like to refer to as “Mission: the rest of our lives” and I have displayed all of the above qualities and more during this process. So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mother Nature for mirroring the conflicted mood I’ve been in by slamming sleet and snow against our windows and blowing a drift across the door and blocking husband and I inside this little house together in the middle of a bathroom remodeling project, forcing us to make some damn decisions already.

Because it worked.

See, after we sold our house in Dickinson at the end of December, husband and I have been discussing and researching and making decisions and canceling plans and going through books and websites and talking out where exactly on the ranch we are going to live for the rest of our lives.

As you know, I have lived here, in the house my grandfather built, since June. And since I moved my shoes and bed and table and books and music and body between these walls almost a year ago, slowly I have found myself coming back into my own again. I have rediscovered this landscape where I grew up and began to throw myself into the things I loved to do as a kid, because I couldn’t help it, I felt 10 again. I picked wildflowers, rode my horses, explored the old barn, walked the coulees, played in the rain and rescued lost kittens.

And I wrote about it, worked through it and relaxed a bit into myself again.

But during this time I have always had it in my head that my existence in this spot, with the window that looks out to the barn and the other that faces the corrals, would be temporary. Our plan was to build a house over the hill and leave this house the way it is, with some updates and an open door to guests.

That was our plan, so we moved forward–kind of. We talked to builders and picked up pamphlets and searched the internet for custom homes and asked questions and never really did set it up and move on with it already.

What I was most excited about was fixing up this house. Putting in some new floors, siding, deck, appliances–the works. I wanted to see it glisten and shine again. But really, what about our house already? What was wrong with us? What was the hold-up on making our forever home?

Forever.

Home.

Forever.

Well, on Sunday we brought home some tiles to fix up the shower in the farm house. Tiling. Not my favorite by the way. And as we were taking a trip out to the shop to get the tools, on the way back husband stopped short of the door and put his hands on his hips. He leaned back. He inspected. He moved around the house making noises like “hmmm…” and “wellll…” and “huh.”

I watched him for a bit, my arms full of tools. Then I asked the inevitable “What?” “What are you doing? We have a mission here.”

He turned to look at me through the foggy air and mist that settled in on the barnyard and over the square brown house before the storm hit and out of husband’s mouth came words that, simply said, seemed to clear that fog and mist and hovering clouds that had existed in my mind as indecision…

“We could stay here. We could stay in this spot. We could make it work.”

I sat down on the deck that is in desperate need of repair and put my head in my hands.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” I whimpered.

“Yes,” I wailed.

“Yes,” I sobbed.

“Yes. I want to stay here.”

And so we took the time that was reserved for tiling that Sunday afternoon and talked it over, made some drawings and gave ourselves some options on how it could work.

And I was happy.

And still am.

And think I always will be here.

At home.

Even with the storm wailing outside and painting this house and barn white.

Even while other people were hunkering down against the storm yesterday and watching bad movies we were inside tiling and tiling and making plans for more work like this.

Even when I can’t get my car out of the snowbank.

And since many of you are snowed in today I think this might be a good time to share with you a little extra reading: My winning essay and answer to the question “Who Inspires You” for the “Inspired Woman” magazine out of Bismarck, ND.

Read it and then tell me why I didn’t listen to myself and figure this whole forever-home thing out months ago when I placed the last period at the end of the story.

It must be a woman thing.

You can see the entire article in the magazine, complete with photos, here: Inspired Woman Magazine

P.S. The decision to stay in the this location doesn’t mean we won’t have space for guests. It just means we will have different space available…

And so a girl changes her mind and I am confident it will work out for the best.